Many commercial telephone users employ a multi-line telephone system. Typically, such telephone systems permit multiple calls to be fielded at once; some systems employ switching devices and the like in order to enable a live or automated operator to handle incoming and outgoing calls smoothly. As an example, the MERIDIAN system, available from Nortel, has twenty-five separate lines for use by the customer.
The multi-line telephone systems described above are interconnected with telephone lines provided by a commercial local telephone company at a “demarcation point”, which represents the location to which the local telephone company delivers telephone signals. The multi-line telephone system interfaces with a demarcation point device to provide service to the customer. One typical demarcation point device for interfacing with the customer's telephone system is an RJ21X device, which provides connections for twenty-five telephone lines. The RJ21X device typically includes a connector, known in this field as an “amphenol” connector, that has twenty-five pairs of “tip and ring” pin connection sites aligned in stacked relationship, with one pin pair site corresponding to each telephone line. The mutli-line telephone system has a mating amphenol connector that interconnects with the amphenol connector of the RJ21X device, thereby connecting the telephone system with the local telephone company.
One problem that can develop as a result of this arrangement is identifying the cause of any malfunction to a telephone line. In many instances, the customer recognizes a problem with a line when attempting to use the telephone in the normal manner (for example, there may be no “dial tone” when the telephone is “off-hook”). When this occurs, the customer is often unable to determine whether the malfunction is present in the local telephone company's lines or in the customer's telephone system itself. As such, ordinarily the customer is forced to contact either the phone company or the vendor of the telephone system, who will send a representative to evaluate the problem. Too often, customer contacts the wrong party first, thereby subjecting itself to the cost of an unproductive, non-corrective service call and delay until the proper party is located. Also, in many instances the telephone system must be disconnected from the demarcation point, which can disable the entire telephone system.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide a technique by which a customer can determine the source of a telephone line problem for a multi-line telephone system, and to do so without the need to disconnect the multi-line telephone system from the demarcation point device provided by the local telephone company.